The Focus on Blackmail Re: Security Checks Reminds Why Linda Tripp Blew the Whistle on Bill Clinton

           There has recently been focus on security background checks for character flaws and especially for vulnerability for blackmail for high-level federal appointees because of breaches of security in the Trump Administration because of the lack of security clearances issued to staff because of problems discovered in the applicants’ backgrounds. 

            Most liberals and Democrats argued in 1998, during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and subsequent impeachment and trial of Bill Clinton that character did not matter, only policy and popularity.  The Trump Administration security scandals have led liberals to acknowledge the necessity of the security checks, in particular because of the concern about blackmail, even if not to acknowledge that character matters for officeholders, whether appointed or elected, as the background checks are also intended to safeguard against corruption, malfeasance and, particularly for those who would receive access to classified secret intelligence, disloyalty to the United States.         

           

            The reason former White House staffer Linda Tripp stated that she was a whistleblower against Bill Clinton and reported his adulterous affair with White House intern, Lewinsky, to the authorities was because the President had made himself vulnerable to blackmail by his misdeeds.  The mistress had told Tripp that Clinton had mentioned to her in a telephonic conversation that a foreign government had been listening into his telephonic conversations.  Clinton was not impeached for his adultery with his subordinate, which was a federal crime in the District of Columbia, and an abuse of office, but for perjury and obstruction of justice in a sexual harassment civil lawsuit in which he was the defendant, but he could have been removed from office for such reckless behavior that made him vulnerable to blackmail by a foreign government or any enemy.  

           Protecting whistleblowers is essential for security and good government.  They must be defended, whether one likes those whom the whistleblower is exposing or not.